28 October 2018 1:49 AM

The burglars are at your door. And the police? Hiding in their office: How the balance of fear is shifting in Britain as criminals are no loner afraid of the law

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday column

Britain today is like a ship, long ago holed deep beneath the waterline, which now begins to list alarmingly, as the sea starts to slop on to the deck.

In many parts of this country, the balance of fear is shifting. Criminals are not afraid of the police and the courts. Normal people are afraid of wrongdoers.

How long before this happens where you live?

And then, what use will your easily broken windows and easily kicked-in front door be, or your burglar alarms to which nobody will respond?

In London, where the horror of knife crime is now plainly out of control, police are failing hopelessly in their efforts to catch and prosecute the culprits, even where there are living witnesses who could identify the men who tried to kill them. But they dare not do so.

As Sarah Jones, a Labour MP who heads Parliament’s all-party group on knife crime, says: ‘What’s particularly shocking is the growing number of offences where the police identified a suspect but they weren’t prosecuted because the victim did not support further action. This suggests a serious problem with victims feeling too afraid or mistrustful to testify.’

I would guess that this goes a lot further.

Many of us who have had dealings of one kind or another with the modern police suspect that, if we go to them, they will probably manage to mess up the case, ably assisted by the CPS, while also giving our full personal details to the suspect.

Even if they get it right, the criminal will be ‘spared jail’ by a feeble judge. Simpler to let it go.

And so the figures of recorded crime have a very distant relationship to actual crime. If there’s no insurance to be claimed, why bother?

Most of us reluctantly recognise that things which were once restrained by the law – general low-level nastiness, vandalism, public drunkenness, illegal drugs – have now been decriminalised by stealth.

The problem is that almost nobody in politics, or the media, or the police, is remotely interested in why this has happened or how to put it right.

The police themselves are like BT, or one of the other monster monopolies, which view the public as a nuisance.

The Police Federation is just another public service union, whose solution to everything is more taxpayers’ cash. But a lingering sentimentality stops us seeing this.

We used to like and respect the police, and we wish we still did, so we are more easily fooled by them than by any other lobby.

Take the current moaning about how their almost complete failure to enforce the laws against burglary, drunk driving, and drug possession is caused by a shortage of officers.

This is not true.

Police strengths are down a bit from their 2009 peak (was that an especially crime-free year?) but are significantly higher than they were in the days when all forces managed to patrol the streets.

The problem is that the police are doing the wrong thing.

Think about it. Please. What use is a police officer after a crime has been committed, unless he or she can do first aid?

If your life has been ruined by a drunken driver, or a motorist texting while driving, he cannot unruin that life. He cannot restore the irrevocably lost mental health of the teen who has smoked marijuana.

The best he can do is, with a lot of luck, arrange for the criminals involved to do a bit of community service, or be sentenced to a fine they won’t actually pay.

His job was to prevent these things from happening, by being a visible, patrolling presence in every town and village.

But he has stopped doing this.

The beats he used to walk long ago vanished. The police stations, hundreds of them, were sold off. So were the police houses. The police road patrols became a rarity.

The modern police deride these simple, effective methods. They claim they cannot halt cybercrime or terrorism or domestic abuse.

Well, this would be a good argument if the modern police methods of hiding in remote office blocks or driving about chatting to each other, worked any better.

But they do not.

I am astonished that the debate on this subject continues at this ignorant, partisan level.

It is as if the captain and his first lieutenant were arguing, on the bridge, about the menu for dinner, while the ship went down by the bows.

Corbynites may love the new film Peterloo, about the indefensible massacre, in 1819, of unarmed Englishmen and women by drunken, stupid soldiers under the command of dolts.

If Left-wing speeches are your thing, there is no shortage of them in this drama, which seemed to me to last slightly longer than the Hundred Years War.

The final scenes of slaughter are, by contrast, powerfully moving.

But the whole point of Peterloo is that it was the middle classes who publicised it, using that great invention, the newspaper, and denounced it, and sought the reforms which ensured that the voice of the people would be heard and heeded in the land, without bloodshed.

I feel great sympathy for the old soldiers now being dragged from their retirement by officious detectives to face investigations about long ago events in Northern Ireland.

Soldiers are owed the total loyalty of the Crown, which sent them into danger and demanded their disciplined obedience.

But I feel no sympathy with most of the soppy politicians now raising their cases and bleating about how unfair it all is.

For these politicians continue to pretend that our abject crawling to IRA gangsters (and ‘Loyalist’ gangsters, too) in Belfast in 1998 was a benevolent, happy peace deal.

It was not. It was a capitulation.

Which is why it is we who withdrew our forces, and we who hauled down our flags and ceded our territory (it will pass to Dublin’s control quite soon).

Our lawless enemies kept their guns and bombs, rose to power, and dined at Windsor Castle.

And it is our soldiers who face police inquiries, while hundreds of grisly terrorists were released from well-earned prison sentences, and hundreds more promised that their bloody crimes are forgotten.

How strange it is that a country which admires Churchill’s defiance of a wicked and mighty enemy applauds our surrender to a small, criminal gang.

Unlike those who rushed to conclusions about alleged gas attacks in Syria, without bothering with evidence, I have waited till it is beyond reasonable doubt that the Saudi regime murdered the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, on their own premises, using their own state- paid hoodlums.

And now I can say this to our Government, and to the warlike media voices and MPs of all parties who have postured over the undoubted wickedness of Russia and Syria: You are hypocrites. Your moralising is all phoney.

Because, as we will see in the years to come, the many barbarities of the Saudi regime will not lead to sanctions, or bombing raids or missiles or mass expulsions of diplomats.

Nor will the increasingly obvious aggression and despotism of our other great friends, the Chinese.

These killers and tyrants will still be welcome at Buckingham Palace. And this does not really bother you.

So it is obvious that we, as a country, can be bought, and actually have no morals.

And so either your outrage against Syria and Russia is a pose to make you look better than you are; or you do not know what you are talking about; or you have other, less creditable reasons for seeking conflict with these countries.

That is now established.

*******

'Short Breaks in Mordor' A collection of my reports from places you need to know about but probably don't want to visit - E.g. Pyongyang, Baghdad, Minsk, Teheran, Cairo, Katanga, Mandalay, Deoband, Peshawar, Baku and Tashkent - is now available as a paperback here

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Henry L'Eplattenier ..."Incidentally, I cannot remember a "wayward brigade" ever being mentioned in this contributor's posts."

If that is a reference to me then please recall my post..."I think you will find that the *majority* in this 'society' of ours still holds very Christian views even if many are, like me, not too keen to pay homage to the state's lukewarm organised Churches - my fronted adverbial reference to those organised churches mentioned is surely no grounds for a complaint?

I am a retired police officer who regularly attended a social services home for delinquent children. These were kids aged from 11 to 16 who had gone astray and instead of being locked up in a juvenile detention centre were housed here. They frequently went AWOL, ( absent without leave) and when they did they committed offences such as theft and burglary. They were regularly high as kites on drugs with young females prostituting themselves to the local Asian community in order to get drugs, ( an offence I was prevented from investigating by my senior officers). All this took place about 30 years ago. Yes that is how long the police have not been doing their jobs.

Now my local police have spent over 3 years investigating allegations made by the criminals in care against the staff, who did their best to keep the criminals out of trouble, for physical and sexual abuse. After 3 years the police still have not got sufficient evidence to prosecute any of the staff. How much longer must the innocent suffer at the hands of an incompetent police force who cannot realise that the reason why there is insufficient evidence is because the alleged offences never took place and the accusers are only trying to get compensation for being complete bast..ds.

It is time we put a stop to this sort of thing by insisting that the police, CPS and judges do their jobs of keeping the general public safe in their own homes.

I was proud to serve my community and believe I did a good job, but by the time I retired I was glad to do so. Now I am ashamed to say I was a police officer.

You provided us with various facts and factoids from history: a neolithic population in Ireland was displaced by an invasion of "Celts"; a pope donated Ireland to the King of England; Scottish settlers evicted Irish farmers.

You then alluded to the saying that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

I asked you what lessons you think we should learn from your facts and factoids.

You replied with, ".... as the Chinese are said to say: 'The problem which is to come, that is what is to be avoided'."

Well, quite. So what is the "problem which is to come" that we can avoid by learning the lessons provided by your facts and factoids: what are those lessons?

The original comment you responded to was, as I understand, a protest against the assumption that England has any right to govern Ireland. From the factoids you opposed to this protest, we gleaned that populations are mixtures of mixtures. We have yet to be told how this is a response to the protest. That the populations of Ireland and England are overlapping mixtures of mixtures does not give England any right to govern the population of Ireland, nor Scots settlers to evict Irish farmers. The overlapping mixture of mixtures is irrelevant to the government people choose. (Similarly for settler states where the mixtures don't overlap within the last 50 000 years.) Of course, force has a lot to do with who actually governs whom.

On a minor matter, you said that there was a Celtic invasion of Ireland. I said that, as I understood it (I am certainly no expert), archaeology and DNA analysis did not support this. You retorted that archaeology and DNA analysis are after the event - as if this somehow allowed you to dismiss evidence. I asked how. I asked what you were using instead that allowed you to dismiss the only evidence we have. An answer would be of interest.

From Peter Starr, the mind reader...“Go ahead and say that you think the Israeli Jews are to blame for universal decline. You were not thrown off this blog for anti-semitism. Mr Hitchens justified permitting it by noting that it teaches us that people like you are common. You were thrown off for falsely accusing Mr Hitchens. (See the comments under: "If criminals could read..." 01 January 2017) So there is no need for you to be coy with your madcap notions.”
My second submission…..
Firstly, I welcome any inspection of that conversation (angry argument) in its entirety, from 13 months ago because you are absolutely right, I was not thrown off this blog for anti-Semitism and, had I *ever* made any anti-Semitic remark on this blog, I most surely would have been thrown off – forever
Secondly, your two days of digging enables everyone to see you are wrong on both counts, I was not ‘thrown off’ this blog for falsely accusing Mr Hitchens either, and shows ‘I did nothing wrong to warrant being ‘thrown off’. It also shows up your own hypocrisy when you falsely accuse me.
Thirdly, how many times are you going to dig this up? If you have any objections to what I said so long ago then why don’t you discuss and defend against them rather than use that tired old accusation of anti-Semitism to silence anyone who has ever criticised Israeli actions in Palestine - and yes, there are growing numbers of Israel’s critics.
As for being ‘coy’ – you are wrong again - I’m far too outspoken to be accused of that.
Notwithstanding your unprovoked attack, it is you, not me, that has introduced anti-Semitism into this present discussion on politics and Christianity – which begs the question: why, Mr Starr?

-"This isn’t a particularly damning observation on multi-ethnic culture, since most mono-ethnic cultures manage at least one civil war. The English are a pretty staid bunch, and we’ve managed two, three if you count Brexit."-

The common denominator is the creation of identifiable group difference, which can equally be one of ideas - cultural, political, religious - as ethnicity, with taught ideas which are intergenerational proving to be as intractable.

The significance of overt declarations of manufactured difference from choice was noted by Desmond Morris in 'The Human Zoo' (1969):

"The style of clothing also differs strikingly, and when hostilities break out between sub-groups, or are about to break out (a valuable clue), dressing habits become more aggressively and flamboyantly distinctive. In some ways they begin to resemble uniforms."

This is in marked contrast to the alternative message that says:

"'We are not deliberately, aggressively setting ourselves apart.'"

@Ewan Maclean | 31 October 2018 at 03:28 PM:

-"Would you therefore really describe Irish resistance to English rule as a "civil war"?"-

It is a moot point as it did not involve the raising of flagged armies of combatants who met each other on a field of battle but civilians as such.

-"So what do we risk repeating?"-

We have already been repeating it but as the Chinese are said to say: 'The problem which is to come, that is what is to be avoided'.

That puts me in mind of a well known comment made on hearing of the other's death, "I wonder what he meant by that?"

The other references have also been posted previously:

The Concise Oxford Dictionary:
Semite - (Member) of any of the races supposed to be descended from Shem, son of Noah (Gen. 10:21 ff.), including esp. the Jews, Phoenicians, Arabs, and Assyrians; so Semitic...

From the web: "Genetic analysis suggests that a majority of the Muslims of Palestine, inclusive of Arab citizens of Israel, are descendants of Christians, Jews and other earlier inhabitants of the southern Levant whose core may reach back to prehistoric times. A study of high-resolution haplotypes demonstrated that a substantial portion of Y chromosomes of Israeli Jews (70%) and of Palestinian Muslim Arabs (82%) belonged to the same chromosome pool."

Is not the most terrifying thing about the current situation the fact that neither government or opposition has offered any serious solution to our current crime wave. The liberal approach to justice is obviously failing quite catastrophically but the left-wing establishment will never admit it. I think it should always be emphasised that there are no genuine reasons for the behaviour of the terrible excuses for humanity who commit the crimes that blight society. As time goes on this is becoming abundantly clear.
At the risk of ruining Mr Hitchens’ day, I would like to suggest that realistically the only way of solving this serious problem is by a referendum. This would be a decision as to whether to carry on treating criminals as victims, or to provide effective deterrents to crime. A return to nineteen-sixties standards would be a good benchmark for the latter. It has to be a referendum because only the Conservative Party can make this decision, but they never will because it will be used as ammunition to attack them. The Labour Party and other left wingers will not deal with the problem because for ideological reasons they will never deviate from the current failures. The absolute truth for these latter organisations is that the solution to failed Socialist policies is more Socialism. There’s one thing that I personally am quite sure of; the traditional Labour voters will almost certainly vote for a return to civilisation. The middle class lefties simply do not understand how much the present anarchy has such a detrimental effect on the working class quality of life.

Michael Wood writes: "A faithful Christian follows the teachings of Christ on such matters and looks to his/her own responsibility to live life accordingly."

- Fair enough. It is when they seek to influence the life of others that the problems start arising.
Incidentally, I cannot remember a "wayward brigade" ever being mentioned in this contributor's posts.

Recent archaeological thought suggests that there was no mass migration of Celts into Ireland but a small number who brought their culture and intermixed. The vast majority of Irish people are descended from those who were amongst the earliest to arrive in Ireland.
Also Henry II was only given authority in Ireland in order to restore the Church which at the time in Ireland, where abuses such as married priests etc were not uncommon.

I have never been 'thrown off this blog', Mr Starr and I am certainly not anti-Semitic -how could I be when my Lord and Saviour is born a Jew - so kindly retract your untrue accusations.
If you really want to put words in my mouth or name then stick to what I actually say and try, if you dare, to debate them honestly.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. "in multi-ethnic cultures it tends to be civil war rather than universal brotherhood."

We are just finished agreeing that the Irish are a mixture and the English are a mixture, and the mixtures overlap.

Would you therefore really describe Irish resistance to English rule as a "civil war"? Similarly, the Scottish Wars of Independence, perhaps? (By the way, I'm pretty sure John Comyn acknowledged Edward as his overlord, and look where that led!)

So what do we risk repeating? The Irish kings swearing fealty to Elizabeth? Scottish Protestants evicting Irish Catholics from their land? The English claiming some right or other to rule over Ireland?

I still find your message inscrutable (as inscrutable as your comment about Palestinians).

adeledicnander writes “As a professor on the 'Today' programme once observed: ‘in multi-ethnic cultures it tends to be civil war rather than universal brotherhood.’”

This isn’t a particularly damning observation on multi-ethnic culture, since most mono-ethnic cultures manage at least one civil war. The English are a pretty staid bunch, and we’ve managed two, three if you count Brexit.

-"Neollithic - 4000bc-2500bc. So you're saying that a single population rowed across several thousand years ago and no-one followed for another 2000-odd years? And you know this how?"-

It is public domain not personal opinion.

-"And it is relevant to the question of the people living in Ireland wanting to be free of English rule in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th century, how?"-

It is history.

"'The archaeology and DNA would be 'after the fact'. Oh, dear Lord! And you have contemporaneous information, how?"-

Publicly available information today necessarily has the advantage over the then contemporaneous knowledge of their own historic past irrespective of their being closer in time to it.

-"The Pope gave Henry II the power? Oh, that's alright then."-

It is merely a counter-intuitive historical fact - as noted by Colm J 29 October 2018 at 04:45 PM: "Well, he was an English - the only English - pope." - then both the pope and the king being Catholic.

-"The Irish at the time, good Catholics all, would have told the both of them, ever so politely, to boil their heads."-

"In 1154 the pope gave Henry II power to conquer Ireland ... The Irish kings accepted Henry as their overlord" - ["The Modern Encyclopedia"].

-"Have you done the similarly relevant DNA analysis of the Scottish settlers? Were they gaels, or picts, or English or Norse or...?"-

They all derived from the same ancestors differentiated by cultural tradition.

-"Your various historical statements and misstatements are relevant to this, how?"-

Its relevance is to the original posted comment.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

As a professor on the 'Today' programme once observed:
"in multi-ethnic cultures it tends to be civil war rather than universal brotherhood."

Michael Wood: "it has been perpetrated by those we are unable to name..." 28 Oct 2018.

Go ahead and say that you think the Israeli Jews are to blame for universal decline. You were not thrown off this blog for anti-semitism. Mr Hitchens justified permitting it by noting that it teaches us that people like you are common. You were thrown off for falsely accusing Mr Hitchens. (See the comments under: "If criminals could read..." 01 January 2017)

"immediate dismissal of all under performing MP's - and those whinging for second referendum vote - renationalisation of the railways - double rate of tax for high earners - build millions of council houses - set up new political party …"

Blimey, that sound like we're in for a proper socialist party, led by a would-be dictator from the north-west of England. Hasn't that been tried before?

Well, you've certainly fooled me as I have no idea what you are on about.

Exactly who C P Lassen is, I've also no idea. But if he sounds anything like me I'm sure I would get on well with him or her.
Does your referral to a post of early September mean you are keeping a little blacklist of those who have the sheer audacity to question your contributions here? If not, it must have been a remarkably penetrating comment, far superior to my humble efforts.

Henry L'Eplattenier ..."I was referring to certain views held by conservative Christians (this contributor seems to have omitted the word "conservative" when quoting from my post), such as opposition to same-sex marriage, opposition to abortion, preference for sexual abstinence etc, which have become minority opinions in today's society."

I omitted the words 'conservative Christians' because I don't think there is any such person(s).
Anyone who prefixes their Christianity with anything other than 'Faithful' belongs to that 'lukewarm' and wayward brigade I referred to.
The 'phobias' you list and relate to Christians are a more general human viewpoint, held by many conservatives and also many others from all walks of life.
A faithful Christian follows the teachings of Christ on such matters and looks to his/her own responsibility to live life accordingly.

Wayne Aschcroft: The usual selective outrage re the Northern Irish conflict. Reading the many comments of your type in the British media one would be forgiven for assuming that the Provisional IRA was the only group that murdered people in the Northern Irish conflict, when in fact British loyalist groups killed many innocent civilians (both Catholic and Protestant). The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974, the Greysteel and Loughinisland massacres, and the so called Shankill Butchers, are just a few examples that spring to mind. Funny too how the British (and Irish) media never dwell on the close and well-documented connections between loyalist terror groups and respectable political Unionism. And that's without getting into the whole question of British state collusion in terrorist violence in Ireland.

Ancient civilisations decaying from within from moral, economic, spiritual and military decay feared that barbarians from outside their countries would invade and run amok. However, unlike us, they had the iron-rule of Law to keep their own barbarians in line.
Another superb column from Mr Hitchens, and many fine posts from: "The Followers." (!).
Anyone middle-aged should take some solace, at least, that we are: The last of the Briton's.

Neollithic - 4000bc-2500bc. So you're saying that a single population rowed across several thousand years ago and no-one followed for another 2000-odd years? And you know this how? And it is relevant to the question of the people living in Ireland wanting to be free of English rule in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th century, how?

"The archaeology and DNA would be 'after the fact'. Oh, dear Lord! And you have contemporaneous information, how?

The Pope gave Henry II the power? Oh, that's alright then. The Irish at the time, good Catholics all, would have told the both of them, ever so politely, to boil their heads. As the Scots did in the 14th and 15th centuries. This addresses the point about the Irish in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th or 20th centuries, how?

Have you done the similarly relevant DNA analysis of the Scottish settlers? Were they gaels, or picts, or English or Norse or...?

The past is indeed another country. The past in Ireland, like the present, has been one where the population did not wish to be under English dominion.

Your various historical statements and misstatements are relevant to this, how?

Posted by: Alan Thomas | 29 October 2018 at 05:18 PM **Posted by: “Christopher P. Lassen” | 05 Sep8 at 05:52 ***
You haven’t fooled me at all. The prose and even grammar of “C P. Lassen” are very familiar on this blog and your nonsense and bluff are easy to expose.

Michael Wood
I agree with you. I was christened and attended Sunday school. We had assemblies in school a hymn prayer before school day in my ordinary secondary school.
I don't recognise today's Church, as I told a caller wanting to discuss religion. " Interesting", was his reply.
Topical today is the budget.
With note Henry E'l's comment. As one in the age group waspi women who have been deliberatelyly targeted for very rapid pensionable age increase. 1954 means a 6 year rise in wait for those women who left school at 15 , plus the fact that in the headline grabbing " Me too", movement when it comes to kind of sexual and group harrassment of our young females going about their daily work, town visits, left strangely out of the conversation.
Not a celebrity, but we do have minority status, I feel.
I come from working class roots I'm white, British, Christian, on forms I fill in. At least one tick box for us.

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